Dragoon

[cartejos]

Inspiration from Little Red Raiding Hood http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=7200.0

This build is still in the works

Dragoons in Final Fantasy are people who typically wear heavy armor with the likeness of dragons. The use Spears and Lances and focus on jumping in to deal high damage.

Full Plate is the Armor to go for here as it offers a (relatively) small and reducible ACP. We want it to reduce speed as little as possible, and reduce the ACP on it to 0. This can be done with Mithral and Greater Heavy Armor Optimization (2 feats). Though Mithral treats Full Plate as Medium armor it is only "For purposes of movement and other limitations". Mithral Full Plate is still Heavy Armor, though it is treated as Medium Armor for detriments based on weight category.

As of yet, I still haven't worked out what enchantments are optimal for the armor. Those touching on Speed, Jump Checks, Charging, or various Feat Granting enchantments are what I'm looking for most.

As of choice of weapon I'm going for the Duom (Dragon 331). It's a Martial weapon with 10' reach and can threaten adjacent opponents. 1D8/*3/Piercing

+5 Keen, Valorous Duom of Collision and Vaulting. Keen, Valorous, and Collision all add up to +4, and Vaulting is a specific weapon property for a Halberd, I've taken the liberty of swapping in the Duom.

The Build:
Crusader 1: Starts off a little wonky, but a little survivability, some good maneuvers, good HD.
Cleric 1: 3 Domains from Cloistered: Knowledge; Travel; and Undeath. Ideally. And trade Know+Trav for Devotions.
Barbarian 1: Beefier health, Whirling Frenzy, and Pounce.
X1
Warblade 3: Snatch Sudden Leap and Leaping Dragon Stance. No reason for this, I promise.
X3
RKV 10: Cause nobody says "Are you sure about this" to a great wyrm better... except maybe a caster... forget those guys

Still working on full Build

Feats:
This build functions pretty much solely on Battle Jump. Being able to charge just cause you "drop" from the square above your opponents head (Get there via jumping) and being able to jump as a swift action. Recovering your sudden leap is... weird. You have to spend a swift action to recover your maneuvers and then attack or do nothing. Some nice DMs might let you jump/charge after you recover your maneuvers. But honestly... they probably won't.
So with Battle Jump, Travel Devotion, RKV and a Charisma of 12 you have 8 Turn Attempts that can be used to Move (a.k.a jump (a.k.a charge)) or you could use them to get extra swift actions that would let you Jump (a.k.a charge) or recharge your Sudden Leap.

However, I do also suggest Power Attack + Leap Attack. You could also throw in some of Person_Man's combat tricks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?127026-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Melee-Combos)

Improved Initiative, Skill Focus (Jump), or anything that increases speed are also welcome.

I have not yet looked through the huge amounts of feats in 3.5 in relation to this build.



Critique, tips, improvements, anything is welcome.

[Goaty14]

The real question is how this is any different from slapping heavy armor onto a charger build.

[Zaq]

The real question is how this is any different from slapping heavy armor onto a charger build.

It’s a Hood build. Hood builds are special charger builds by definition. The whole point is to be able to jump on people (ideally from a standing start) and treat that as various degrees of a charge. At the low end, Hood builds simply allow you to gain the benefits of a charge in scenarios when actually charging would be nontrivial. At the high end, they stack multipliers in ways that low-end charger builds don’t, turning their jump-charges into kind of super charges (or, alternatively, you can build for jump-charging multiple times per round with a certain parsing of RAW).

As to the specifics of this build, I can’t really say. No offense, cartejos, but this seems a little more like preliminary notes than like an actual build, so it’s not clear to me exactly what you’ve got in place and therefore exactly what you’re capable of.

[Dimers]

Hellforged armor template from DMG2 knocks another 1 off the ACP, stacking with mithral. You might also consider Great Armor from OA as a base -- it's one less AC than full plate, but one more max Dex, one less ACP, and a little less encumbrance.

Also definitely add Durable enchantment from Dungeonscape. Flat 500gp to make the armor immune to rust and acid.

Mmm, maybe replace one +1 on the weapon with that ToB enchantment that gives +3 when you're in the appropriate stance?

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

What about something with a short range teleport like effect? Click your heels together, appear in the sky and fall to your opponents doom, a la an Anklet of Translocation from MIC.
Or take at least a level in something that grants an animal companion, take a flyer and use an item or spell with a transposition effect; have the flyer over their head then swap yourself with the flyer.

Nimbleness armor enchantment from MIC gives -2 to ACP and +1 to max dex.

[Remuko]

What about something with a short range teleport like effect? Click your heels together, appear in the sky and fall to your opponents doom, a la an Anklet of Translocation from MIC.
Or take at least a level in something that grants an animal companion, take a flyer and use an item or spell with a transposition effect; have the flyer over their head then swap yourself with the flyer.

Nimbleness armor enchantment from MIC gives -2 to ACP and +1 to max dex.

i was gonna suggest that enchantment too. theres also one (iirc) that gives +5 move speed, if you dont have something else it wont stack with, id say it could be worth, as extra move speed can give you better jump checks and offset the move speed loss from the armor (if you dont get rid of that some other way).

[cartejos]

As to the specifics of this build, I can’t really say. No offense, cartejos, but this seems a little more like preliminary notes than like an actual build, so it’s not clear to me exactly what you’ve got in place and therefore exactly what you’re capable of.

Well thats because they are notes for now haha, I only get an hour or two to work on my characters a day. I wanted to post the skeleton of the build in advamce on the forum to aee what others may be able to contribute

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

i was gonna suggest that enchantment too. theres also one (iirc) that gives +5 move speed, if you dont have something else it wont stack with, id say it could be worth, as extra move speed can give you better jump checks and offset the move speed loss from the armor (if you dont get rid of that some other way).

Quickness enchantment from MIC.
Then there's Aporter, also in MIC, lets you dimension door 800' twice a day, just combine it with something like the Drogue Wing from Races of Faerun so you don't splat if you miss.

[Erit]

i was gonna suggest that enchantment too. theres also one (iirc) that gives +5 move speed, if you dont have something else it wont stack with, id say it could be worth, as extra move speed can give you better jump checks and offset the move speed loss from the armor (if you dont get rid of that some other way).

If the custom magic item creation rules are fair play, an item of permanent Knight Unburdened is only something like 2.000 GP. That solves the movement speed limitations for any type of armor; it's what I personally use for my Goliath Dragoon in full Mountain Plate. Slap the enchant on an undershirt or a necklace or something and you're golden.